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One consequence of the election results in Alabama is that the hostility between the establishment and the populist elements of the GOP coalition will rise to a new, potentially unsustainable level.

Over the past 40 years, the Republican Party has largely become a coalition of two groups: white people for whom the economy and the U.S. political system work extremely well, and white people for whom the economy and our politics hardly work at all. Democrat Doug Jones’ upset win in Alabama yesterday points to the slow-motion crackup of that coalition.

The bargain since Ronald Reagan’s presidency has been that the wealthy get their tax breaks, their shills in Congress and the hyper-concentration of wealth and power. The less fortunate group gets candidates who align with their right-wing views on guns, abortion, same-sex marriage and other social issues. In Alabama, that candidate took the hideous form of Roy Moore—an accused child molester, endorsed by the Klan, who believes that homosexuality should be criminalized, has said that America was last “great” when we had slavery (because at least families were together) and questions whether Muslims can hold public office.

The result of this bargain is a party whose social and economic policies are almost comically unpopular—its current tax bill, for example, has an approval rating in the 20s. Yet the GOP manages to control every branch of the federal government through a blend of gerrymandering, voter suppression, campaign cash and the rural biases built into our political system. Donald Trump is the perfect symbol of the party—a billionaire posing as the champion of the forgotten people who, having lost the popular election by 3 million votes, has an approval rating sitting in the 30s.

One consequence of the election results in Alabama is that the hostility between the establishment and the populist elements of the GOP coalition will rise to a new, potentially unsustainable level. Jones won in a state that went for Trump by 28 points in 2016 and, until last night’s victory by Jones, hadn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate in 25 years.

On Monday, Stephen Bannon—former Trump chief strategist and the media mogul behind the right-wing website Breitbart—called out several Republicans for declining to support Moore. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who each publicly criticized Moore over his sexual abuse allegations, “should know better,” Bannon said, noting that there is “a special place in hell” reserved for them. On Tuesday night, with election returns coming in and the outcome of the race still unclear, Breitbart posted several conspiracy-tinged stories about the GOP establishment’s plans to silence Moore, should he win.

The great danger for the Republican establishment is that Bannon has gone rogue—and could very well imperil the party’s chances of retaining power in 2018. At the campaign rally where he called out Shelby and Corker, Bannon rightly noted that the establishment GOP was only using Trump to push through tax cuts for its donors. The sting of Moore’s loss may well provoke much more brutal honesty from Bannon about the Republican establishment.

Bannon’s own headache is that his first great experiment in fomenting the culture wars, by recruiting and supporting far-right bigots like Moore, has just flamed out spectacularly. It’s hard to maintain credibility as a populist hero when you can’t gin up popular support. If he barrels ahead with his grand plan to primary Republican candidates in next year’s midterm elections, we could see a repeat of Moore and Bannon’s failure on a national scale.

The headache for the GOP, broadly, is the party’s moral hollowness and ideological bankruptcy. Republicans essentially have nothing to offer anyone who isn’t wealthy or a far-right ideologue. With the knives out and Bannon and the establishment at war over the future of the party, that’s becoming harder to disguise.

In Alabama, for example, one-party Republican rule is a long, sorry tale of economic stagnation. The state’s per household income is about $11,000 below the national median, and 17 percent of residents live in poverty. That’s the fifth-highest rate in the nation, according to a recent report in the New York Times.

Maybe the greatest lesson of the Alabama election is that Democrats can compete and win when their voting base has good reasons to turn out. Jones won largely because of an unexpected boost from the state’s black residents, and black women in particular—traditionally the core constituency of the Democratic Party. Despite the state’s harsh voter ID laws, 96 percent of African-American voters went for Jones, and they accounted for 30 percent of the electorate—far exceeding expectations.

Trump and the GOP’s populist act, meanwhile, is wearing thin, even among the evangelical Christians who form the Republican Party’s base. A Pew Research Center poll released earlier this month showed that Trump’s approval among white evangelicals has fallen 17 points (from 78 to 61 percent) since February.

In a remarkable essay published in the New York Times this week, a 21-year-old student at Alabama’s Auburn University wrote about the disappointment she felt that so many fellow Christians had set aside their values and chosen to support Moore. “We are coming of age in strange times, and more and more of us are getting politically involved,” she wrote. “Voting should be just the beginning for us young millennials. This is a time for passionate outcry across the political spectrum.”

Indeed it is. The great question is whether the Democratic Party will be a voice for that passion or follow the GOP’s path of corporatization posing as populism. In its own way, the party is divided by the same forces that are tearing the GOP apart. Corporate-friendly Democrats cling to power, while progressives and insurgent candidates battle the establishment for the soul of the party.

Jones’ win serves as a reminder that the path to victory for Democrats lies in putting forward an agenda that benefits the people who are ill served by our current political and economic systems—the majority—rather than simply decrying the GOP’s barbarism. If the party chooses this progressive path in 2018, Jones’ victory on Tuesday may well be remembered as a pivotal moment in the GOP’s ongoing crackup—and, potentially, in the Democratic Party’s surprising renaissance.

Theo Anderson, an In These Times writing fellow, has contributed to the magazine since 2010. He has a Ph.D. in modern U.S. history from Yale and writes on the intellectual and religious history of conservatism and progressivism in the United States. Follow him on Twitter @Theoanderson7 and contact him at theo@inthesetimes.com.

Best thing for the GOP, wonder how many trumpies voted for this nut. Even major GOP lawmakers in that state remarked they would not vote for him which means he was a major problem with the party in that state. Both the sander and trump people say the same thing in different ways, would be nice if they could work together which would be fun to see. In the days of the old south white and black groups did work as a team to fix issues even though they did not like each other. Our economy is not in good shape and our business creation concepts do more damage than good..

Posted by 6384601 on 2017-12-17 18:07:49

Thanks for the lnk. But you're wrong about China. Three sources (World Bank, IMF, UN) say China's per capita GDP (which is higher than income) is only $8,100.

Posted by Bob Fritz on 2017-12-17 13:55:48

A simple google search for " -country- per capita income" gets you the numbers and a link to the relevant site, it's not hard.

Posted by Milander just milander on 2017-12-17 13:45:15

It's hard to imagine that anyone can seriously write about the potential political realignment of Alabama without discussing racism. So congratulations to Mr. Anderson on that singular achievement!

Coming out of World War II Alabama was the most unionized state in the south and its major politicians were strong supporters of FDR's New Deal. What made this workable was the Democratic Party's tolerance for racism. Then in the 60s the Civil Rights Movement moved the national party firmly into the anti-racist camp, with its southern wing declining to follow.

Southern Democrats decided that racism was more important to them than progressive economic policies, converting to Republicanism in droves. This desertion broke the back of the national progressive movement while also failing to meet the real economic needs of most southern whites. The appeal of Trumpism was the vaguely articulated intimation that the Republican Party could be transformed into a more vigilant defender of both racism and economic programs that benefit poor whites. In other words, beneath the glitzy New York brass and the golden blonde comb-over, the less than immaculate rebirth of George Wallace was seen to be miraculously taking place.

But of course Trump, who stands for nothing more than seizing the opportunity of the moment (whatever it may happen to be), has egregiously failed to deliver on an economic agenda that benefits poor whites. And not only does he have no intention of doing so, he is in active pursuit of making the plight of poor whites worse than ever. Blood will out, and Trump's home turf lies closer to the brokerage houses of Wall Street than to the steel mills of Birmingham.

Trump's bet is that if he feeds his core supporters enough juicy morsels of racism he can get away with starving them on economic policy. So that hypothesis is now being put to the test. The Alabama results suggest that some members of the Trump base are beginning to figure out the scam and perhaps that an exaggerated racism by itself will not be enough to keep them in line.

The unique aspects of the Alabama situation -- the palpable absurdity of Roy Moore and the influential Richard Shelby's implicit last minute endorsement of Jones -- make it impossible at this early point to declare the existence of major national trend. But the hints are suggestive and have surely ignited hope in places where there was little or none before.

Posted by woofer on 2017-12-16 21:17:47

Could be. Not sure where you got your number (and forget where I got mine) but I think I recently read a number for the US that was a lot lower than $58K.

Posted by Bob Fritz on 2017-12-16 16:31:36

Actually China's per capita income is 15,500 dollars. The USA's is 58,000 dollars. It is significantly more but I doubt most Americans earn that while a far greater number of chinese people will earn their PCI.

Posted by Milander just milander on 2017-12-16 14:42:27

I think the Alabama election was a great victory for the Republicans. Here's why. They learned (again) not to nominate kooks if they want to win. Further, Bannon has lost clout and it will be easier for Republicans to tell him to sit down and shut up. That puts them in a better position to gain more seats in 2018.

Further, Doug Jones knows that, to get reelected in 2020, he has to represent the views of the voters in Alabama, who favor Trump by 28%, and not just cave to the iron fisted dictatorship of Schumer and Pelosi. He'll probably break with Schumer on some issues, making it easier for reasonable Democrats to do the same. The "resistance" will end and bipartisanship will be strengthened.

Posted by Bob Fritz on 2017-12-16 08:30:29

What China are you referring to? the China where per capita income is about $4,000?

Posted by Bob Fritz on 2017-12-16 08:22:33

All of this GOP foolishness and distraction issues like guns and abortion have allowed the Demos to corrode into a pile of rusty parts of nothing. Meanwhile the economic dam is breaking. There is no way our increasingly backwards country will be able to compete with countries that regulate and control banks and corporate cabals. Chinese capitalism works much better than ours because they believe in paying their taxes. China will be next on the moon and Mars. We have no chance unless we focus on rebuilding our once great local economies, abolishing all political primaries and doing with less. There is no sign the Democrats will push progressive solutions, just the same old corporate and Wall Street empowerment, accompanied by massive prison and military spending.